


That Picture

by shirleypositive72



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shirleypositive72/pseuds/shirleypositive72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She'd loved him completely. And then he was gone. An OC's experience of Episode 4x01, "Lazarus Rising"  Watching this episode first would be a plus, but not strictly necessary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That Picture

Bobby keeps trying to get me to eat. I wish I could. For him. Because even trapped under the crashing waves of depression and devastation and desolation that curl around me, drowning me in despair, constantly pulling me under without even the barest hint of relief, I am aware that I still love Bobby. Still feel an almost, just barely retrievable understanding of wanting to take care of him, care for him, care about him, as he has done for me most of my life. But I can't. I can't care for or about anything. Anything at all. I'm dead, you see. Oh, my lungs still draw breath. My heart still beats. But these are involuntary functions of a mind that doesn't yet realize the futility of keeping the body alive. My mind doesn't yet know what my soul already understands. I died the moment Dean did.

There is no relieving this grief. It's too overwhelming to even truly feel it. It's just… there. Never ebbing, never wavering, never fluctuating to even the tiniest degree. It's a presence in the way that Dean no longer is. My constant companion, the subject of every thought, the taste on my tongue. Hell took him from me then promptly settled upon me like skin.

"Janey, sweetheart. Please at least drink something. Please."

I know Bobby has been drinking something. I can smell it all over him. The only thing keeping him upright since Sam left us without a backward glance has been me. I don't know how long ago that was. A month? Two? Three? Time means nothing to me. It is all just one endless stretch of nothing. His fear that my body will follow my soul into the black keeps Bobby just this side of a black out of his own.

"Jane, damn it. It's been days, girl. What happened?" He's trying to sound angry, powerful, demanding. He doesn't achieve that goal. The worry in his voice sabotages all effort at strength. I look up into the face of the man so desperate to fix all that is broken in me with his own broken tools. I would cry at the sadness I see there if I still could. But I can't. I can't. "What took you away again?"

I was getting better, I thought. What a cosmic joke, a lie to surpass all others. Nothing has ever gotten better since that day in May when Dean was taken, the day everything that made me me disapperared. I had actually made it down the stairs, fully clothed, bathed. I had even brushed my hair. I had eaten some eggs, I think. I had gotten to the point where I could at least achieve those meager goals most days of the week. It hadn't been going on long, but it made Bobby happy, and that, too, was a goal.

Having opened my eyes to the living world around me, seeing that world through squinted, swollen eyes, I at last noticed the squalor with which my uncle had surrounded himself. I'd been moving through it for weeks, I guess, without noticing at all. Hoping to keep Bobby smiling, and perhaps close to sober, I decided to clean up a little. And then it all came crashing over me again.

A picture. One picture was all it took to reveal the folly of believing I could actually be alive. That I could in any way be a part of a world that lacked the one thing I required of it above all. A picture of me. And Sam.

And Dean.

We were children. At least, Sam and I were. Dean was never a child. Taken on the day that I came to live with Bobby when I was nine, Sam was ten, Dean was fourteen. And he'd made me smile. In the middle of the worst time of my life, the very worst until the day he was taken from me, Dean made me smile. Little Jane Downey, whose parents had just been killed by something nasty, whose Aunt Karen's husband Uncle Bobby had now become her only family, smiled. Dean was standing tall in this picture that shattered me. No gangly, uncomfortable in his own skin teenager was Dean. I was on his shoulders, giggling, while Sam looked up at me with the slight hint of jealousy that he felt for anyone who claimed a moment's attention from his hero.

I had always loved this photo. As a tween it was like a poster on my wall, better than any boy band, because he was my hero, too. In my teens, I was almost jealous myself of that little girl because in that picture Dean was touching her, something he refused to in regards to teen-me once I got boobs. And on my eighteenth birthday, the day he finally kissed me, the day we had apparently both been waiting for, we looked at that picture in its cheap frame on Bobby's desk, against which Dean was leaning me, and laughed together. How far we had come.

And now I hate that photo. It rips me to shreds, much like the hounds had done to my Dean. It kills me bloody like the teeth of Lilith's pets had done to him as I watched, tearing me apart until there is nothing left alive.

"The picture, Uncle Bobby," I croak with a voice dusty and cracked from disuse.

His face crumbles. That photo brings him a measure of comfort, I think. A reminder of the children he helped raise, the family he held dear, memories of Dean when he was whole, of Sam when he hadn't yet turned from us, of me when I allowed myself to live. And now I can almost recognize regret within my shriveled heart. Regret that as he gets up to leave, and heads downstairs, I know he is opening another bottle, drinking himself closer to his own abyss.

And then I hear a knock on the door.

"Surprise."


	2. That Voice

The mind is fragile. We believe it to be a sturdy, strong, resilient thing, but that's a lie the mind tells itself. In truth, it is tasked even in the best of times with so much more than it can handle. Knowledge, independent thought, conscience, emotion, and the responsibility of maintaining physiological viability all compete for a corner that isn't already being occupied. An elastic entity perpetually stretched to its limit.

My mind has slowly given up all but the basest functions; reduced to breath and pain and memory, it seems. At the sound of that voice, it is not beyond the scope of reality to believe that it has simply decided to fill its now empty corners with the things it loves best.

Like Dean's voice. The voice that brought me comfort after I arrived at Bobby's and the horrors of the vivid recall of my parents' deaths plagued my nights. The voice that, when we were rambunctiously annoying yet sarcastically hilarious teenagers, Sam and I could coax into laughing playfulness before Dean remembered he was the one in charge. The voice that was smooth as honey when he told me I was beautiful. The voice that rumbled on my cheek when I rested my head on his chest. The voice that folded around me like an embrace when he told me he loved me. The voice that meant home.

I am convinced for a moment that my mind has taken mercy on me and given a glimpse of my heart's desire. I have moved on to the conclusion that it is not mercy but cruelty, when I hear … more. Struggle. Bobby's voice rising in anger. Or panic? Furniture scraping. And that voice.

Dean's voice. The only sound that could mean happiness to me. The only sound that could make me whole, alive. It is the worst torture to hear it now. Now, it means there is a threat in Bobby's house.

With volition I would not have otherwise believed still existed within my wasted, twisted shell, I somehow move. It is rather unlike the dead to move, and so I am surprised. Danger to myself could not have moved me. But it's Uncle Bobby, and he sounds like he needs someone, and I'm the only one around anymore. Rising from the bed that has again become my cocoon these past days is a creaking endeavor, the stairs are a challenge, but I can hear Bobby's continued anger and fear. Rounding the corner to the kitchen takes courage I still don't believe I possess, but I do it anyway, because I can still hear it. That voice that calls to everything left inside my mind. What I see stops me cold. I can make it no farther than the archway before I find myself sliding downward. I am on my knees, folded inward. I cannot blink away the sight.

Dean's voice is pleading, begging, and spilling from something that looks very like my Dean.

"I don't know. I just woke up in a pine box."

Bobby throws holy water in its face, and in an uncanny imitation of what my Dean would have done, the thing that looks very like Dean spits it out.

"I'm not demon either, you know."

"Sorry. Can't be too careful," Bobby shrugs.

And I start screaming. The elastic has snapped.

I see it all. I can't miss a detail because my eyes cannot close. They feel too big, too wide. It's dirty and beat up; its clothes are filthy and torn; its hands are a bloody mess. It turns its head toward me in tandem with Uncle Bobby and takes a step closer.

"NO! Stay away! You aren't real. You aren't REAL," I whisper, though I was trying to shout. It is halted by my terror alone.

Bobby kneels beside me, touches my face, but I can't move my eyes to him.

"Janey, it's him. It's really him. I checked, did all the tests."

"What? I, I don't…" I cannot finish the thought. The thing that is very like Dean is looking at me in with Dean's green eyes. Eyes that know me. Eyes that could always make me feel touched, caressed, stripped naked, understood. I feel that way now, and I can't understand why that is.

"Here's here. It's Dean."

I blink, finally, and he's still there. It must be him, really him, because Bobby said so and he would never lie to me.

"Am I dead?" I ask him.

"No, baby. I'm alive."

I gasp as though I have not truly breathed in four months, filling my lungs with possibility. That's his voice, the one he uses only with me, the one he only ever uses in private when he shares truths no one else gets to know. Bobby helps me up, but Dean does not move any closer. He's waiting for me. Like he always has.

"Dean?" I move closer, slowly, afraid he will fade, disappear.

"It's me," he says softly, quietly, allowing me to touch his chest. He reaches out to me slowly and touches my face.

"You feel real," I say.

"That's good, because you feel wonderful."

I smile for the first time in longer than I can fathom. It's him.

He must feel me accept him, the fact of him. I am pulled into his arms and held so tightly, like I'm his anchor keeping him from floating adrift. There is pain of Dean's own in that embrace.

"It's alright. I'm here. I've got you. Don't cry, Jay. I'm here." All the things he says to me when I'm afraid, or sad. I had no idea until this moment that I was even crying.

He smells like Dean. Sweat and dirt and blood, true, but underneath is the scent that belongs only to him. It's always there.

And that voice. Rumbling against my cheek as my head rests on his chest.

"I love you," I tell him.

"I love you, too."

And we are both suddenly alive.


	3. That Day

I can't seem to let go. I held onto our first embrace until it became physically necessary to move. I held his hand while he told Uncle Bobby of his trip from Pontiac to Sioux Falls. I kept my hand on his back as he washed the grime and sweat and grave dirt from his face and hands. I grasp his hand again when he turns from the sink and walks us into the library, where Bobby sits waiting for us. I simply cannot break contact. If I can touch him, if I can feel him, then he's really here.

Dean doesn't try to shake me off. He doesn't loosen my grip or pull away. He stops what he is doing, as he has done every little while since I first grabbed onto him, and turns my face up to his with his fingers in my hair and kisses me. Just like he did that day. I wonder if he makes the same connection. It flashes through my mind every time he does it; fingers of his right hand in my hair, thumb resting on my jaw, my face upturned, his lips hard on mine, and then the hounds. I have to remind myself that this is not that day. And I touch him, feel him, hold onto him again.

Bobby has always needed the why's and how's to be clear in every situation. He says it gives you at least a fighting chance of being prepared for the next scary thing that comes out from under the bed. He and Dean discuss the total lack of any idea why and the complete dearth of evidence as to how he is back, but I don't listen. I don't care why or how, only that it happened. They talk about what he remembers, and I don't want to know. He says he remembers that day, and then the box. He should be allowed to forget it all. I remember enough of that day for both of us. Every detail. Every yell, every scream, every moan, every shrill laugh of Lilith's delight, every gnash of the hellhounds' teeth, every sticky drop of his blood hitting the floor, every rip and tear to his body. I have relived that day, without fail or fault in recall, every day since. I wonder, briefly, if his hell was worse than mine.

I stand behind him, my arms around his waist and my head resting between the broad shoulders that have always carried so much more than they should be able to bear. He turns and hugs me tight again and sways us around, almost dancing, like he used to do when I was a child. He stops us in front of the giant desk that only last week was the location for my latest breakdown. He leans against it and gives me a perfectly evil smirk. If I wasn't already convinced it was him, that lifted corner of his mouth coupled with a lascivious gleam in his eyes would have won me over. That look always wins me over, no matter the question. The desk brings the memory of our first kiss, which in turn brings out this look from Dean. It is so familiar, so a part of us, so Dean, that it takes my breath away. The heavy sigh escaping from Bobby is familiar, as well.

"Save that until I'm not in the room, will you?"

"Why would we start now, Bobby? We never waited for you to leave before," Dean teases. I almost don't hear him because I am so focused on looking at him. He's really here. "Hey, what happened to the picture?"

"I moved it," Bobby tells him gruffly, in a tone that tells him to ask no more about it. Dean has always been good at reading that tone. Instead, he stands and wraps one arm across my shoulders, lifts the other to rub the back of his neck, and finally asks the one question he has been afraid of.

"Sam's number's not working. He's not-"

"Oh, he's alive, as far as I know."

Relief and then realization. He finally moves out of arm's reach and begins to pace as Bobby gives him a truth he hadn't expected. Sam left us. I watch him as he takes that in. After explaining the state of his gravesite, the eerie presence that found him at a gas station, and the handprint welt on his shoulder, Dean makes the decision to track Sam's phone and find him. He has some answers we need. Dean locates him with little effort but decides that a shower and sleep are priorities for tonight. It isn't an easy choice. Everything in him wants to get to his brother, but he is much more tired than he wants to admit. Sam can wait one more day. After dinner, we say goodnight to Bobby and go upstairs. I give him some time alone to shower and to process all he has learned. My time is spent convincing myself that he is truly behind the closed bathroom door. That, even if I can't see him, he's still there. I wonder if instead of merely being dead this morning, that I have now actually gone insane. But he does walk back through that door.

And we are finally in a room alone. After the shock of seeing him walking and talking and breathing, after the worrying questions of how and why, after the painful discovery of Sam's decision to disappear, after struggling with the choice of what to do next, we are alone. There is none of our usual playfulness in our coming together. There are none of those romance novel moments of bodice ripping and wall banging, though he has performed those feats of erotic ardor well in the past. The first time together after having lost each other forever, or so we could not be blamed for believing, is just us as we are, as we have always been. Passionate, unrestrained, honest. We give each other everything, leaving nothing out that the other needs.

His kiss is broken for only seconds as our shirts are discarded and then he's back to me. The taste of him is all that I remember; everything I remember but so much better because it's real. He's whiskey and Dean, a taste I never thought to experience again. I feel no shyness as he takes off my clothes; everything he reveals belongs to him. I don't feel any hesitation to bare him completely, either; he gave himself to me entirely long ago. Calloused hands move over me and we both sigh with relief when we are finally skin to skin. No barriers, no boundaries, nothing separating us at all, neither death nor hell. And when we are still, when we are sweaty and satisfied but nowhere near sated, I sleep in his strong arms.

This night, I do not hear the screams, not his or mine or Sam's. I do not feel the grief that has been my companion for four months. I do not feel the emptiness, that hollow place that I couldn't fill or heal. I feel love and loved; I feel content and safe. I know I won't wake in terror and tears during the night, smelling blood and watching his death. This is the day I will dream of, his return to me. He has beaten back the nightmare of that day.


	4. That Face

He's beautiful. Different, but still beautiful. To the average girl, to any woman who didn't know him before his trip downstairs, he would certainly appear to be quite perfect. How he was bought back, whoever did it, resulted in the removal of all the scars that once marked his muscled, defined, well-trained body. That hypothetical average girl might think that a gift, an improvement, the perfecting of the already perfect. But I see it as history erased. Scars earned in battle tell an heroic story, and he's had chapters taken away.

I roll onto my side and stare. I can't stop myself from reaching out to touch him. As he sleeps, my fingers roam as my mind catalogs the missing tales. The small mark at his hairline that told of a nasty wreck and a pretty reaper and a lost father, a bullet wound in his left shoulder sewn back together with stitches that spelled Jo, bent fingers that never set because he was too busy chasing the next story he would never tell. The cuts on his arms that gave silver-edged witness of his humanity, the slices to his palms that gave power to homespun spells: all gone. I missed each one because to me they were not blemishes, not imperfections, not shameful or scary. They were Dean, the story of his hard life, writ large in jagged lines and fading color.

I breathe in his scent, reaffirming that he's here, last night really happened, I am really touching him. My fingertips travel down his arms, feeling the strength that bested every foe to come his way. His muscles are taut even in slumber. Dean is never really at ease. He never completely uncoils, his body always ready to spring into defensive or offensive action. He is a weapon, powerful and dangerous. But he can also be gentle, generous and attentive. The ultimate lover, skilled in that respect as he is in all tasks to which he applies himself. And my Dean definitely applies himself to sex. He doesn't fail to take his own pleasure, but he is always more focused on giving it. Since that first time soon after I turned eighteen, he has been attuned to me in every way. I will never know another man because I will never need to.

His body is beautiful to look at, inspiring love, lust, admiration, jealousy, and fear, depending on who's doing the looking. Broad shoulders, muscular arms, killer abs, dominant stance. Gorgeous right down to his bowed legs. I never fail to feel a bit smug when another girl looks him up and down, or feel a tingling excitement when a big nasty realizes that Dean will not be beaten. His body is even more awe inspiring when I feel him against me. When all of that power and gentleness are focused on me. But it's not his body that captures me this morning, for all its apparent changes. That was for last night. This morning, I am held prisoner by his face.

Along his sharp, square, obstinate jaw, I feel his customary stubble. That jaw is still tight, still rigid, still showing the only expression he can allow his enemies to see. I am so sad for him that he has been in the company of only enemies for so long. My fingers trace the outline of his perfect lips, and he wakes. I watch his too-long eyelashes brush lightly along his high cheekbones, blinking lazily as his eyes find mine.

"What are you doing?" he asks, voice roughened even further by sleep. Speaking against my fingers like that, he gives me chills.

"Reacquainting myself," I whisper. It seems a reverential moment. I place one finger firmly against his mouth, and he is quiet as I resume my inventory, a hint of amusement on that face.

Moving my finger, I again follow the contours of the mouth that has the power to bring me untold pleasure, quip the most vulgar joke, lift me up with rare praise, or cut me down with the occasional criticism. He smiles and kisses my fingertip.

But the smile doesn't reach his eyes.

So green, so wide, his eyes might be what made me trust him on that day so long ago. Arriving at Bobby's and meeting these people I had never seen before, boys at that, was terrifying. In no way recovered from the carnage I had witnessed, new people were not high on my list of things I wanted to be doing. But Dean had a look so gentle, so understanding, so open, that I had no problem with him being around. Sam's puppy dog eyes were almost as effective, and we became fast friends, but Dean became my trusted protector. And when they left, I believed him when he told me they would be back. Because I could read his eyes.

And that's the biggest change. His eyes, so expressive, have always shown his emotions. At least, they have to me. Humor, anger, jealousy, frustration, worry; all came through his eyes like spoken words. Now, underneath everything else, they show… regret. They show that he is haunted.

He must see my concern on my face.

"What's the verdict?" He tries for nonchalant but doesn't quite pull it off.

"Your scars. They're gone."

"You noticed, huh? Smooth as a baby's butt. Cool, right?"

"I miss them," I tell him honestly. He'd know if I lied.

"Why? I'm good as new. Pretty sure I was a virgin again before you got a hold of me last night," he smirks. God, he's trying.

"Took care of that, didn't I?" I laugh a little, playing along with him.

"Awesome. Now you're my first, too." This smile feels more genuine, and I wear one to match it.

I look into that face again, that beautiful, haunted face, that face that features in all of my best memories ,and kiss him deeply. I want him to feel my love and acceptance, my need and want for him. Because it doesn't matter that the scars are gone, that he looks different now than before he left. The stories are still real, his heroism a truth without doubt. Because that face still belongs to the man I love, and that will never change.


	5. That Boy

It's time to go get my best friend. Time to bring him back. He's left me behind before, but it was always with the promise of return. This time he made no promises. This time he never looked back. This time that boy left broken, left me in pieces, neither of us believing we could ever be fixed. God only knows what he's done. It's time to go get Sam. And fix him.

"You don't have to come, Jay," Dean says, like there is any chance in the world that I'm going to let him leave without me.

"I'm coming."

"I don't know what shape he'll be in, or how he'll take me just showing up."

"I'm coming."

"Janey, you two didn't exactly part company on the best of terms," Bobby reminds me, still very worried about me. I'm fine, though. All I needed to heal me walked through the door yesterday.

"I'm coming, Uncle Bobby. He's my Sammy, too."

The day Dean was dragged away, Sam survived. He saved my life because Lilith spooked when she failed to kill him; she never got around to my murder. I watched it happen, and I still don't understand it. Sam said it must have been the blood in his veins. I thought, at the time, that it was because Bobby couldn't have lived through losing us all. As it turned out, he did lose us all, in very different ways. Sammy got up from the corner where Lilith left him, cried over his brother's body with me, and pulled me forcibly from the room. Once in the Impala, his tears stopped and he drove. He drove until we reached Bobby's house, our home, the only place we had to go. Sam waited until I stopped crying and grew silent. He waited until Bobby stopped breaking things and started drinking.

And then Sam left. And Bobby and I suffered another loss.

He answered his phone the first few times my uncle called him, I think just to be sure we were still breathing. But he soon stopped picking up. Bobby never stopped calling. Never. Sam was his as much as Dean, as much as me. He would never give up, not if he could save one of us, just one.

I remember begging him to stay, pleading with him not to leave me, calling him selfish when he left. He told me it shouldn't matter because the one I cared about was gone. At the time, the utter wrongness of that statement escaped me. I was aware, in the beginning, of his absence. I cried for him, called out for him, needing Sam to help me navigate through the never ending labyrinth of grief and pain I could not escape. I was the one who was selfish. How he must have been suffering, must still be suffering, and I didn't care. I care now, and I'm afraid it's too late. There is no way in hell they're leaving me behind.

I'm going to go get Sam. I'm going to get that boy from the picture, that boy who was always a little jealous, but who also always had his eye on me. He kept me going when we were children, kept me from being too lonely. He was with Bobby and me more often than Dean was when we were young, and he was my playmate and confidant. In our teens, he was my partner in crime that week or two every couple of months that John brought them both to visit. We drank and smoked and sneaked around, just daring his big brother to come bust us. Sam kept loneliness at bay during those years whenever he was around, too, when Dean avoided being alone with me like the plague. I didn't understand then that it was because he was waiting for that magic age, but between him and Sammy, no guys ever even looked at me in high school. But who needed them when every now and then my best friend came to stay.

The first time that boy really left me behind, he went to Stanford. How could I be mad? I went to college myself the next year, but I stayed in Sioux Falls. I couldn't leave Bobby, and by then Dean was the most important thing in my life. I lived for his visits. But Sam made a clean break. Almost. He had no contact with his father, not with Dean or Bobby. But me, he called. That first year he filled me in on all I could expect; after that we compared experiences. We never spoke of our broken little family. I never spoke of our conversations to Dean, either, though he knew we were in contact. He didn't pry; he knew it was a me and Sam thing.

When John went missing, and Dean went to Sam for help, I was torn. I was so worried about their dad, so happy for Dean that he had his Sammy back, but I was so sorry for Sam. He was losing everything he had built. Jessica was killed and my heart broke for my friend. He came to me then, for comfort and silent support, and I gave all I had to him. And then they went to find their father. No good came of that, and my boys and I were brought together in grief once again.

After graduating college with a major in Anthropology and a minor in Ancient Languages, I became an extra pair of eyes and an in-house sounding board for Bobby. I would occasionally travel with the brothers. My man and my best friend, everything I wanted. It was a lot like old times, the three of us together, only now I got to kiss Dean. Sam and I grew closer again, and it was perfect. Then Sam died. Dean sold his soul to bring him back. My world collapsed. And they were both gone.

Dean has come back to me. It's Sam's turn.

The trip to Pontiac is quiet. Dean can't decide between worried and angry, and Bobby and I know better than to push his decision. The motel he tracked Sam to is horrific. A hooker's paradise. The doors even have trashy little valentine hearts on them. The thought of Sam choosing to stay here turns my stomach. He never would have done this before; he would have at least been turned away by the hearts. Those falsely cheerful pink pieces of nothing make me more concerned than I have been since he left.

Dean knocks on the door and it is quickly opened.

"So? Where is it?" Yep. A hooker's paradise. My heart drops as the whore asks a pointless question in the face of my resurrected Dean. Bobby is speechless.

"I think we have the wrong room," Dean begins to explain. I have just enough time to hope he's right when Sam walks into view. He doesn't see me or Bobby. His eyes are riveted on Dean.

"Hiya, Sammy." Then all hell breaks loose.

After the initial flurry of violence, things calm down, and the brothers hug. Thank God Bobby is fast and Dean is strong. Sam really tried to kill him. Sam is seated on a bed now, the woman is gone and we've established that she was not paid for her services. Sam convinces us all of his ignorance of the circumstances of Dean's rising, and the mood grows contemplative. Then Sam's eyes finally acknowledge me. I've been hiding by the door until now.

"Jay," he breathes.

"Hi, Sammy," I say in a very small voice.

"I knew you had to be close. I knew you'd be with him." Angry, petulant, a bit jealous, that boy in the picture.

"I came to find you."

"I wasn't lost, Jay."

"I was," I tell him, tears streaming down my face. "We both were." His anger recedes. He never was very good at staying mad at me.

"I missed you," he rushes out, taking two huge steps before gathering me in his familiar arms.

"I'm sorry," I tell him. "Don't ever leave us like that again."

"I'm sorry," he whispers, just for me.

Uncle Bobby can be forgiven for his tears. He's earned the right to shed them, as well as the right to have us pretend we don't see them. We're all here, we're all alive, we're all together, and we're going to figure this out.


	6. That Car

I knew I had competition for Dean's attention as soon as I saw her. Sleek and sexy, he could make her purr. She was waiting for Dean right outside that disgusting motel. Sam wasted no time in pointing her out.

"Figured you'd want to drive," he told Dean as he tossed the keys to him. His Baby. For a moment, I am relegated to the back seat, both figuratively and literally. I am neither surprised nor annoyed. In fact, I can't hide my grin as I watch him run his fingertips along the perfect paint of his '67 Impala.

Few things can bring unadulterated joy to Dean Winchester. There are things that make him happy: a good meal, a silly joke, porn. I often try to provide the meal, tell the joke, tolerate the Busty Asian Beauties, because I love to see him smile or hear him laugh. But joy, real bone-deep, untainted joy, is hard for him to come by. Put him behind the wheel of his precious Baby, windows down and the radio loud, and he gets pretty close to actual happiness. I think he likes it even better with me by his side and Sammy in the backseat. Get him under her hood, and I sometimes believe he likes it almost as much as getting under my skirt.

That's not to say that he hasn't ever given me his full attention while in the car. He did not allow me to become that quintessential teenaged cliché by taking my virginity in the backseat. No, Dean made that moment the most memorable of my life. We told Bobby he was taking me on a school visit to Northwestern, and then we got in that car and drove. A weekend in a hotel in Chicago, soft sheets, fluffy pillows, champagne that he hated, Jameson's that we both loved, and us. He took me to a show at The House of Blues, then he took me back to the room. People look at Dean and see a smart ass, sometimes a dumb ass, always a badass. What they don't see is the man who was so gentle it made me cry. A man who was so afraid to hurt me that he cried. He took nothing from me; I gave it to him gladly.

But after that earth-shattering event? Sometimes the Impala was the only possible chance at privacy. Stolen moments away from Bobby's increasingly suspicious eyes became more and more difficult to steal in those early days. Starry nights in isolated clearings in the Dakota woods, deserted corners among abandoned cars, private moments in hopefully less than public places: these were the places we made our own, where we shared ourselves with each other, alone together, safe inside that car.

I gained quite the education pressed into the leather seats of that car. I learned what he liked and how to give it to him. I learned what I liked and how to get it. I learned that you should always lock the doors, and Sam learned to never open them. I also learned the rules. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole. No dogs. Get your damn shoes off my seats. The basics. Over the years, I learned more complex truths. Dean's moods were mercurial but obvious when he was driving, and I learned when to speak, when to comfort, and when to shut the hell up. I learned that when he was talking to Sammy, that sometimes even though I could hear them speaking, it was, in fact, a private conversation. Every mechanical sound became familiar. I could pick out a disturbing tick, detect a troubling whine, pinpoint a problematic knock. Every rumble of that engine meant something. And I learned over and over that it sounded like home when it drew nearer and loneliness when it was driving away.

I learned a few things from Sam in that car, too, though they were very different from the things I learned from Dean. In fact, Sam taught me to drive. The first time he tried, he was eleven and I was ten and Dean was not amused. Later that day, Sam taught me how to hide in that car. It took Dean hours to find us tucked under the false bottom of the trunk. When I was fourteen, Dean himself decided it was time I learned how to drive a car. Just in case; in our lives, it's an important skill. His lessons lasted all of twenty minutes. I'd never heard him yell so much. Insisting I learn in a car that actually ran well, but understanding there was no way he had the patience to be my instructor, he handed me and his car over to Sammy. My uncle and their dad looked on, trying to hide their laughter. It was probably a good thing that particular visit to Bobby's only lasted a week. Dean was traumatized, but I think he was also proud of us both.

Big brother Winchester wasn't ever really happy to see me and Sammy in that car together. We went out there to get drunk more than a few times. Dean couldn't exactly get angry with us; he's never been a hypocrite. But he did live in fear of us puking in his car. He later told me he worried for other reasons, too. He told me he would have hated to have to beat the hell out of his brother had Sammy ever even thought of touching me. Visions of me and his little brother making out in the backseat taunted him. Once I finally got Dean in that backseat, I kissed those visions away. So, Sam unwittingly taught me that jealousy is a powerful and dangerous weapon.

And those are just the memories that belong to me. The Impala was never as important to me as it was to them. Though I hold dear the smell of it, the feel of the leather, the sound of that old, tinny radio, I was only ever inside the thing because they allowed it. They invited me into their home. Since before Dean was even five years old, and Sam was just a baby, and I wasn't even born, that car has been his home. Nearly every memory he has since the time of his mother's death is connected in some way to that car. The small, faded, frayed, well-loved memories he holds from before her death are tied to that car. It's one of the few things that survive in any tangible way from his life… before. Before it changed, before it all broke, before it all went to hell, she sat in that car.

Sam learned to sit like a big boy in that car. He spoke his first real words, played with his favorite toys, pitched tantrums like a champ. And Dean was there for all of it, beside him, watching, comforting, teaching. Dean raised him in that car.

All this is running through my mind as I watch him slide into his seat. Sam and I hurry into position, and we both feel this sense of rightness that has been missing for four months. We're where we should be, in our familiar spots, in a familiar situation, waiting for Dean to drive us to the next thing we have to do. The next thing he's chosen as worthy of our effort. We'd follow him anywhere, and he knows it. He drives, we'll go. Simple as that.

He tosses Sam's iPod jack into my lap with a grimace of disgust and a wink, blasts music older than all of us, and settles into his rightful place. Behind the wheel of that car.


	7. That Psychic

It's hard to watch someone lose the last thread of faith that they won't even admit they've been holding onto. To see Dean's final grasp at hope in something greater than us, better than us, than himself, slip away, breaks my heart. If anyone deserves to hold onto that shred of half-promised peace, it's my Dean. But we don't always get what we deserve, and I'm afraid I won't be able to fix that. He's been disappointed, confused, kept in the dark too many times. Even the seeming miracle of his return is shrouded in darkness, is suspect in every way to him. Maybe Bobby's friend Pamela can provide us with some answers. Maybe she can give us something for Dean to hold onto.

He drives us to meet with the psychic friend, riding Bobby's bumper the whole way just to piss the old man off. It's one of his favorite pastimes, making my uncle cranky. Funny how things seem to fall back into place so quickly. It was always like this before, when we were younger. No matter how long the boys were away from us, the moment they pulled back into the salvage yard, their time away was erased. There wasn't ever really the need to bridge the gaps that time created, because none of us ever noticed the gaps at all. It feels like that now. He and Sam both fill the holes they left behind, and all is as it should be. At least, that's what we're telling ourselves.

We pull up to a decidedly un-psychic looking house. If anyone understands the concept of looks being deceiving, it's us, though. Bobby bounds up to the door, which opens just before he knocks. She's pretty, dressed for an age far younger than her current one, and obviously delights in shocking people. She achieves this goal by picking Bobby up in a bear hug. I don't like her. I have, as yet, nothing on which to base my dislike, but there it is, nonetheless. If Bobby knows her so well, why don't I? Oh. I need to stop that train of thought. The boys and I shuffle up behind Bobby.

"So. These the boys?"

"Sam, Dean, Jane. Pamela Barnes. Best damn psychic in the state." Bobby included both Sam and myself in the introduction. Pamela didn't.

"Hey," says Dean, the smirk he just can't keep to himself on his face.

"Mm mm mm," Pamela hums, receiving a warning look from Bobby. She ignores it. I'm not surprised. "Dean Winchester. Out of the fire and back in the frying pan. Makes you a rare individual."

Lady, you have no idea, I think. I also think she should wipe the drool off her chin. I'm not normally the jealous type, but I just got him back.

"Come on in," she says, finally looking away from Dean.

She tells us her plan to get a look at, but not summon, whatever pulled Dean out. We crowd in through the foyer as we follow her and spread out through her more spacious dining room. As she begins rummaging for the necessary materials to conduct her séance thing, she bends way down to retrieve some candles. Her Ramones top rides up and her jeans pull down, and I can't help the judgmental little twist of my lips. A tramp stamp. "Jesse Forever". Of course. I have tat, too, and I know I'm being a bitch. Doesn't stop me, though.

"Who's Jesse?" Dean asks when he sees it. He just can't resist.

"Well, it wasn't forever," she laughs a bit ruefully, approaching Dean and me.

"His loss," I bite out.

"Might be your gain," she replies sweetly placing a hand on us both. We are both speechless; me in shock and Dean in contemplation, I'm sure. Pam walks away to empty her burden onto the table. Dean turns to me with a plea in his eyes. An old fantasy, one of the few I have resisted.

"No," I tell him.

"Come on," he whispers half-heartedly, knowing he can't win but unwilling to give up completely when the chance is so close.

"Dean, she'd eat you two alive," Sam laughs, having heard the whole thing.

"You're invited, too, Grumpy," Pam informs Sam on her way back to the shelves for more candles.

"You are not invited," Dean assures him.

"Doesn't matter, baby. None of us is going to that party." The look on his face is disappointed but not surprised. He never once thought I'd say yes, anyway. I'm just happy to see some of the old, familiar playfulness.

Maybe that's why I'm feeling jealous and possessive. He's not quite himself yet. I'm not quite sure of his reactions. In the past, I've never worried. Once he decided I was his and he was mine, I knew that he'd never stray. Dean doesn't make promises he won't keep, and he's never lied to me. But right now, he still seems off balance, a little left of his normal, and that's got me on my back foot, too. We're struggling just a bit to find the way back to center. But I know I have nothing to worry about. I know it in my bones, so I have to get over this. He's too damn hot for women not to notice him. And it's not like this is the first time we've been propositioned in this way. I hug him tightly, feeling the muscles in his chest and back move as he closes his arms around me. Mine. And I'm his.

Pam is good at what she does. After an attempt at some inappropriate touching and a warning growl from me, she is nothing but serious and professional. It takes her almost no time to make contact. Our mystery now has a name: Castiel. Castiel warns her, tells her to stop, asks her to turn back. Pamela ignores the warnings, and we're all nervous. And she pays the price.

Pamela is blind, her eyes burned from her head. Bobby is trying to comfort her, Sam is calling for help, and I am holding Dean up under the weight of fresh guilt. He is being crushed by responsibility that isn't really his burden, yet he shoulders it without thought that it just might belong to someone else, that this might just be on Pamela. He blames himself for the choices of others. And loses that last thread of faith in anything better. He got his answer.


	8. That Demon

Another diner in an unending line of bad food. Another tragedy in an unfathomable history of pain. The greasy burgers fade from memory. The misfortunes make their marks in our minds and souls, indelible. We carry them always, everywhere. Dean recalls each one as fault; Sam as fact. Me? I remember each calamity with fear. Fear of the next one. My worst nightmares have already come true. I’ve lost them both once already. Sitting at this table between them now, I am wrapped in the realization that I could lose them both again. Something unseen, unknown, threatens them once more, and I refuse to be a passive bystander this time. I just don’t have a plan yet.

I reach to my left and grab Dean’s hand as Sam fills us in on Pam’s condition as soon as he gets off the phone with Bobby. My uncle couldn’t leave his friend alone just yet. She needs someone to be there for her, and, as usual, Bobby steps up. He would never recognize it in himself if asked, but he is the most compassionate man alive. We who know him love him for it. And would never, ever say it out loud. 

“She’s stable and out of ICU,” Sam tells us.

“And blind because of us.” Dean just can’t wait to shoulder new burdens. I wish I could find a way to convince him the entire world is not his responsibility. That’s hard to do when for so many years the idea was encouraged. I loved John, but I love Dean more, and there is so much of his training to undo. 

“We still don’t know what we’re dealing with,” I remind him, squeezing his hand to get his attention.

“That’s not entirely true,” he insists, looking from me to Sam and back again. “We’ve got a name. Castiel, or whatever. With the right mumbo jumbo, we can summon him right to us.” Dean feels the drive that never leaves him for action, motion, some kind of movement toward whatever outcome he feels the need to reach. Today it’s confrontation and revenge. For him, it’s almost almost always confrontation or revenge. It’s been like this since long before his return from Hell.

“That’s crazy,” Sam says.

“Absolutely not!” I spit. The idea of that confrontation turns my stomach.

“We can work him over, Jay. After what he did to Pam-”

“He burned her eyes out of her skull! And you want to call it right to us? Dean, no. There has to be a better way.”

“There is,” Sam jumps in, trying to convince his brother. “I followed some demons up this way from Tennessee. That’s why I was in Illinois, remember? I say we find them and try to get some answers. Somebody’s gotta know something.”

Dean is less than satisfied with this option, but he drops the argument for the time being. He releases my hand when his pie is delivered and attempts to find normalcy in an old comfort. No one loves pie like Dean. No one. Even this simple pleasure cannot be enjoyed without interruption, though. The waitress takes a seat across from me at the little square table.

“You angling for a tip?” Dean asks her, a little cocky. I know exactly what he’s thinking by the way he moves his body just a little closer to mine. It isn’t completely unheard of for some random chick to make a play for one of the boys with me sitting right there. It’s like I become invisible in the face of their magnetism. It used to be, back in our younger days, that I was just too young to be a threat, or looked too school-girlish to be competition. These days, the girl makes her move in hopes that I’m with the “other one,” whichever the “other one” may be. My boys are hot and do not go unnoticed. No reason to think this waitress is any different.

Until her eyes turn black.

“I’m sorry,” the hell-bitch coos, “I thought you were looking for us.” The other two customers in Johnny Mac’s diner black their eyes and lock the doors. We don’t have to track down the demons Sam had been following; they found us.

This is too soon, just too soon for me to handle. Here is the next one already: the next threat, the next danger, the next tragedy waiting to happen. I rise slowly from my chair, pissed but outwardly calm, projecting strength not fear, still mindful of appearances. All the hot-tempered men in my life taught me how important it is not to give the enemy any idea that your emotions could be coloring your decision making. Not one of those men ever really followed that advice, but they made sure they taught me. For four months I existed only as pure emotion, unable to sustain rational thought, but Dean’s back now and so am I. I feel like I’m rediscovering the hunter I used to be. The demon smirks, though, finding me inconsequential, and returns her attention to Dean. Sam pulls me gently down by my arm, coaxing me back into my seat.

“What makes you so special?”

She asks such a specifically focused question, this demon. She only wants to know one thing. What made him so different that he could escape Hell? What about him made it possible for him to be sitting at this table?

But she has no idea the depth of that one question. No idea of the weight it carries for me, and for Sam, I’m sure. We turn to each other, Sam and I, catch each other’s eyes, and give identical grins at Dean’s answer. Such an amazingly Dean answer, how could we not smile? Indeed, he does have perky nipples.

What is the answer, though? What makes him so special? What makes the Big Bads fear him and brave men follow him? What makes smart men pay close attention to him and wise men seek his advice? What is it about him that commands such respect and loyalty? Why do those who love him, love him so very much?

It’s undefinable, unexplainable, unquantifiable. It’s whatever made John put so much on his shoulders because he had no doubt Dean could handle it all. It’s whatever made Sam rely on him, idolize him, and obey him while growing up because he knew Dean would always be there to take care of everything. It’s whatever made Bobby accept him not only as the one hunter he could always depend on, but as the son he could always trust. It’s whatever makes my heart beat faster when he’s around, makes my senses sharper and my mind clearer.

It’s Dean. And he was too good for Hell.

But she has no idea, that demon. No idea about Dean, no idea how he got home, no idea how to deal with the incredible man sitting before her. The threat to send him back makes my blood run cold and spurs Sam into the kind of action from which he held me back just a couple of minutes ago. Dean stops him with just the raising of his hand. She can’t do it, and he knows it. And now she’s pissed him off. She’s scared. She should be. He knocks the smirk off her face just to prove it. Leading me out of this place with a hand on the small of my back, he pauses. I look back to see him tossing money on the table, paying her for the pie like a whore being paid for her services, leaving her sitting there, powerless.

“Holy crap, that was close,” Dean huffs as we leave the diner.

“We’re just gonna leave them in there?” Sam is frustrated. He’s too frustrated to correctly read the look on his brother’s face. He doesn’t even stop walking as he starts to talk.

“There’s three of them, Sam. We only have one magic knife. And you, “ he says, swinging his head around to stare me down. “You jump in a demon’s face like that again, and I’ll send you home.”

Sam and I begin arguing immediately, our words falling all over each other.

“I can handle one demon, Dean,” I say.

“I’ve been taking on a lot more than that lately,” Sam explains.

“Not anymore, Dean tells us both. “The smarter brother’s back in town.”

Thank God for that.

A/N: Would love to know what you think!


	9. That Old Man

It weighs heavily on that old man, the responsibility he has chosen to shoulder. Me, the boys, the wider hunting community that sees him as Yoda in a trucker cap. Now Pamela. She’s blind, and Bobby feels the weight of that as heavy as any other burden. I see it in his heavy step as we walk out to his truck. 

Dean has fallen asleep sitting straight up, researching, which only goes to show how desperate he is for answers. Sam, too, is snoring loudly. I figure they’ll both be starving when they wake, so Bobby and I are going for food. I absolutely hate leaving Dean’s side, but Bobby is tired, worn out. He doesn’t need to be alone. Looking across the cab of the truck, I watch by the light of the street lamps as despair settles on his face.

Bobby was already heavy laden with guilt and sorrow by the time I came to stay with him so long ago. Even as a child, I worried about adding to his load. I didn’t remember my Aunt Karen, but my mother would often talk about her and Bobby, and how much they loved each other. I thought his sorrow was just sadness at having lost her back then, but when I found out much later how he lost her, I understood the all-encompassing grief. It explained the guilt. Guilt that I came to realize that he didn’t deserve to carry, but that he could not shake off. He reminds me of Dean in that way. Or Dean reminds me of him.

I saw the moment he accepted me, though, the moment Jane Emily McCarthy became a Singer. Watched it spread across his face. It broke through us both like the coming of a new day. And it was. He hugged me close, and tucked me tightly into the little family he had created. Rufus Turner took on the role of his estranged but much respected older brother. He taught Bobby all he needed to know to survive the time immediately following the realization that the things that go bump in the night are really real, and they’re coming in the window seeking murder and mayhem. John was the resentful younger brother, in need of the guidance Bobby could offer but damn bitter about it. He eventually fell out with both men, but there was not one moment of doubt among them that if a call for help ever came, they would drop everything to help. That’s what you did for family. 

There was Father Jim, the only one among these battle-hardened men who was unashamed to show his softer side in front of the others. This was the man Bobby went to when he had a heavy heart. He counseled them all, and kept all their secrets, and they loved him for it. And Caleb, the sidekick, the tag along. He was the apprentice, and he soaked up everything the men threw at him. Bobby kept his eye out for Caleb, taught that idgit all he could, and hoped for the best. 

Ellen and Jo Harvelle were the only women around, and they were really only ever on the periphery. Ellen was great with information, the chatty distant relation everyone knew. She was also the mother hen, making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be, doing what they were supposed to do. She was the family organizer. Jo reminded them all of their fallen friends. She reminded them why they remained soldiers in the fight. 

Then there were the boys. They were the nephews; they even called him Uncle Bobby when they were young. He was the fun uncle, the one they went to when they wanted cookies or chocolate, or movies and popcorn. He gave them advice, affection, and baseballs tossed in the park. He also gave them the tools to flesh out the bare-bones training their father provided. If John was the drill sergeant, Bobby was the nutty professor. Books in archaic prose and dead languages for Sam; weapons, lore, and strategies for Dean. For these boys, he provided home.

And me. The baby girl, the little sister. They all meant so much to me. For me, Bobby meant safety, healing, understanding. My breakdown over Dean’s descent into Hell was not the first time he’d watched me fall apart. Wasn’t the first time he’d tried like an armoured champion to defend me from my personal dragons. The first time, I was a shell-shocked seven year old. Vampires usually kill for hunger, or fun, or theft. The ones who destroyed what should have been my life weren’t hungry, and they weren’t bored. We had no possessions they needed. But my mother was beautiful, and their leader wanted her. My parents died together, bloody and screaming and protecting me. I saw nothing but the aftermath, but I heard it all - including the laughter of their murderers and a whispered, “Goodbye, little one.”

These men all took me into their little, broken, dysfunctional, perfect family and kept me safe. Uncle Rufus was the one who spoiled me stupid then handed me back with cotton candy in my hair, just because he could and knew it pissed Bobby off. He stopped talking to Bobby, but he hasn’t stopped checking in with me, making sure “that boy” is treating me right. Uncle John was the stern one, doling out structure and discipline when he felt Bobby had allowed me too much freedom. He also tucked me in at night when he was staying with us and never left without giving me a hug and a promise to be careful. He never promised to come back, though, and I miss him still. 

Father Jim taught me to pray and to hope and to seek beyond myself. And Caleb was so much fun and taught us how to get away with the naughty things. He learned everything before the boys and I did, but he always told us about it, kept us in the loop, like that dude on the block who was the first to tell the neighborhood kids where babies come from. Caleb taught me to cheat at cards, and scam my way out of trouble, but to always tell the truth to the people I love. They both died in John’s quest for answers, but they went out protecting their family, and neither would have regretted that. 

Aunt Ellen and Jo were called whenever Bobby just couldn’t handle the girl things. My first period, boobs, how to dress with my new hips. Ellen helped me recognize when to control my hormones, and, when the time came, how to deal with Dean’s. She’s who I called before our weekend in Chicago, and she was the one who kept Bobby from killing him afterward. Jo was my friend, my confidant, the one person I could paint fingernails with and giggle. At least, until she couldn’t get over her crush on Dean, and tried to settle for Sam. I wouldn’t share my man, and I couldn’t allow anyone to jerk around my boy. So, no more Jo. I miss what we could have been. It would be nice to have a girl friend who understands my life.

And the boys? They became mine, and I became theirs. Simple as that.

Bobby, though, my God, what wasn’t he to me? My Uncle Bobby became shoulder to cry on, ear to listen, arms to hold, words to comfort. I remember snuggling into his scratchy beard after a nightmare filled with fear and noise. I remember tossing my dinner plate onto the floor when he served mushrooms in the pot roast because he should have known I hated mushrooms, and then coming back into the kitchen only to find him silently cleaning the mess I made. I apologized, and he told me he loved me, then handed me the broom. I remember asking for the truth about what happened to my mom and dad, and I remember the look in his eyes as he told me, as carefully as possible, the words no child should have needed to hear. I remember he realized I needed to hear them.

That old man bought bras and tampons, prom dresses and heels, and a pregnancy test for me. He wiped sweat and snot from my face when I was sick, and mascara and tears when I was heartbroken. He tried to protect me from pain but never shied from telling me the truth. He tried to protect me from boys but realized that Dean was just inevitable. He tried to protect me from this life but knew I would have no other.

When I was shattered by loss, he stayed with me, collected the already fragile pieces and protected them. And when that picture broke me, he removed the image but kept the memory safe. That old man gave me my family. He gave me my life and asks nothing in return, too modest to believe he’s done anything special.

“Let’s get you kids fed, Janey,” he says, putting on his familiar smile for me.

“Okay, Uncle Bobby. Thank you.” I take the chance to say it, even if he doesn’t know why.


	10. That Angel

His tongue tastes sweet, and as he lightly bites my lip to end the kiss, I almost expect a trickle of drawn blood to make the taste less innocent, more Dean. The action is representative of this side of Dean , sexy with a controlling edge. He’s done it before, and, aside from the first time when it startled the hell out of me, I’ve loved it. Leaning into his chest from my place between his legs, surrounded by his arms as he sits on the battered table in the abandoned barn, I am comfortable with the understanding that there is very, very little he could do to me that I wouldn’t love.

Bobby, however, has had enough of this. Making his way back toward us from the other end of the huge space, he shares his discomfort with our PDA. “We’re hunting a monster, here. Give it a rest, ya idgits.” 

I reluctantly step away from Dean, but only just a little bit, and turn in his arms to face Bobby. I seem to have returned to the clingy stage of need I occupied the first day he returned. I was uncomfortable leaving him when Bobby and I went for food earlier, especially with both he and Sam sound asleep. We returned for our grub run to find Dean alone and on the floor, the windows and mirrors in the hotel room shattering all around him and a high, screeching roar pulsing through the room. I had let him out of my sight, and another threat sneaked in behind me.

“Sorry, Bobby. Got carried away,” Dean smirks, but there is a hint of real apology in there. He knows this pushes my uncle’s buttons. There was a time when my cocky boyfriend really was a bit afraid of the old man. Bobby did not immediately accept the evolving nature of Dean’s and my relationship in the early days. Eventually, he realized being pissed about it wasn’t going to stop us, so he simply asked Dean not to rub our physical affection for each other in his face. Except for hand holding, hugs, and the occasional innocent-by-comparison kiss, we have both respected that. Mostly. But Dean does sometimes have issues with authority. And sometimes he just enjoys pissing Bobby off. 

At the moment, however, a pissed Bobby will be an uncooperative Bobby, and I need him on my side. I have a plan now, and I need him on board.

We’re going to summon Castiel.

Whatever this thing is, it knows where to find Dean. Doesn’t seem to matter that we’re leaving it alone or laying low; it finds him anyway. The best thing to do? Face it on our own terms. Be as prepared as we possibly can. 

It didn’t take much to convince Dean. Hell, it was what he wanted to do anyway. He is less than happy with me being involved, but he has never really been one to wall me up in an ivory tower. Bobby, on the other hand, thinks we’re both stupid at the moment. He’s not thrilled with the idea at all. I think he’d be slightly less against the idea if we also had Sam backing us up. Honestly, I would, too, but Dean was insistent on not letting him in on it, instead telling him that we were going for a beer. Personally, I’d like to know why the hell he left his brother alone in the first place, and I kind of think keeping Sam away is Dean’s way of delaying that unpleasant conversation. Bobby’s here, offering support, but he still thinks this is a quick path to dead. He is of the opinion that we should choose life, instead.

“Sorry, Uncle Bobby. It’s been a weird couple of days. I’ll behave.”

“Uh huh,” he answer with a little roll of the eyes as he puts down his collection spray paints.

“That’s a hell of an art project you’ve got going there,” Dean comments, gesturing to the evidence of Bobby’s hard work on the walls and floor. We walk over to him, hand in hand.

“Traps and talismans from every faith on the globe. How you doing?”

“Stakes, iron, silver salt, a knife. I mean, we’re pretty much set to catch and kill anything I’ve ever heard of.”

“This is still a bad idea.”

“Yeah, Bobby. I know. Let’s just get it done,” I snap in exasperation. Realizing this, I mouth I’m sorry. Bobby just nods and gets prepared. 

“You ready for this?” I ask Dean, one last time, as Bobby readies the summoning spell.

“It’s high noon, baby. Time to make our stand,” he replies with that cocky grin I love so much.

The ritual is performed and we wait. And wait.

After more time than we thought we’d have to stand by, there is still no Castiel, whatever it is. I’m worried I’ve led them into a bad move. Dean’s just impatient. We’re all sitting on the tables again, the both of them swinging their legs like children, Bobby whistling a tune. It’s cute.

“You sure you did the ritual right?” Oh, Dean. No.

The look he received from Bobby would have been hilarious had the circumstances been different. Who am I kidding? It’s hilarious now, and I can’t help the giggle that escapes.

“Sorry. Touchy, touchy, huh,” Dean whispers, feeling chastised, knowing he messed up, refusing to admit it.

Bobby has no chance to reply. With no warning, the silence is torn apart like fabric ripped at the seam. A howling wind blows all around the old barn, the sound of the roof rattling is deafening, and the doors are blown wide open. And in it comes, the lights in the ceiling exploding as it passes through every mark of protection that Bobby laid down.

A man. That’s what he looks like. Slightly dishevelled, dressed in a suit, tie, and trench coat. 

Not short like me, not tall like Dean, not a giant like Sam. Just some guy. Maybe a bit older than Dean. He doesn’t look like a monster, but his entrance has us all armed and backed up to the the wall.

I don’t know which of us shoots first. It doesn’t matter. The bullets have no effect. He’s still coming, a look of steely determination on his beautiful face. Beautiful? Why did I think that? Maybe it’s gratitude. After all, no matter what he really is, he brought Dean back. And I can’t find it anywhere within myself to hate him for that, no matter what he is. 

Dean has no such qualms. He picks up his knife and begins circling our invited guest. “Who are you?”

“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition.”

“Yeah. Thanks for that.” And he plunges his knife in the chest of his rescuer while staring him straight in the eye. 

Whatever Castiel is pulls out the knife and drops it like it’s a piece of lint mussing his clothes, and I am doubting my previous thoughts. Now I’m scared again, and the thing in front of =us is frightening and awful. As Bobby takes a swing at him with his rifle, Castiel turns on him, disarms him, and renders him unconscious with the touch of his hand. I no longer care about my fear, I only care about Bobby, and I run past the powerful being between us, praying that the old man is alive. I feel his pulse and nod at Dean in relief.

“We need to talk, Dean. Alone,” he says to Dean, and reaches his hand out to me.

“Touch her, and you’ll never speak again.” And there’s scary Dean, the part of him that only comes out when either Sam or myself is threatened. It’s at times like these when he is at his most dangerous. It’s also when he’s at his most reckless. It’s obvious to us all that he can’t stop this creature, but it doesn’t mean he won’t die trying.

“We have much to discuss.”

“Discuss it with us both, or don’t bother.”

“As you wish,” Castiel sighs then backs away from me. Dean immediately holds his hand out to me. I grab it and am pulled into relative safety by his side.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I am Castiel,” he replies almost innocently.

“We got that,” Dean grits out. “She means, what are you?”

He faces us and says, “I’m an angel of the Lord.”

A/N: I decided to break this in two. One more chapter to wrap up Jane’s thoughts in this epi.


	11. That Faith

“Get the hell out of here. There’s no such thing.”

I don’t often think Dean is wrong. I recognize that the mix of lingering hero worship and my current state of all-encompassing love affects my ability to criticize, but I’m not stupid. I know he isn’t infallible, but usually we end up on the same side of an argument. We may disagree on details, but we’re in sync on big-picture stuff. This time, though, I don’t know. Suddenly I feel like he’s got this wrong. Suddenly this doesn’t feel right. Suddenly I believe I am standing in the presence of an angel.

“This is your problem, Dean. You have no faith.”

Dean’s face is stoic, strong, set, and stern. That face he shows every adversary brave or stupid enough to challenge him. His breathing is even. But his heart. His heart is beating at a pace sure to cause pain. He tried to have faith. He sought out every opportunity, and each time he walked through an open door, he came out more damaged than when he went in. He wanted to have faith. He now doubts the possibility. He knows he has none.

Thunder crashes through the silence created by Castiel’s admonishment, and light with no origin shines, bringing with it a shadow. Of wings.

“Wings! Those are wings! Dean, he’s got wings!” I grip his arm so tightly that surely it must hurt even him. I’m shaking so hard that he has to hold me up with an arm around my waist. I heard Castiel’s words. I believed him. But seeing the wings… How can a person be prepared for that? I wish Bobby would wake up. He needs to see this. 

“Some angel you are. You burned out that poor woman’s eyes.” Dean’s anger at the being with us in this barn only intensifies.

“I warned her not to spy on my true form. It can be overwhelming to humans. And so can my real voice. But you already knew that.”

“You mean the gas station and the motel? That was you talking?”

The angel nods. 

“Buddy, next time lower the volume.”

“I was wrong.”

Just like that, my awe turns to anger.

“You were wrong?” I shout as I take a step closer to that angel. Dean tightens his grip on me as I vent my fear. “You were wrong?! You could have killed him! You knew after the first time what it did to him. Why’d you go after him again?” The memory of Dean on the floor of the motel, covered in glass, has me seething.

“That was my mistake. Certain people, special people, can perceive my true visage. I thought, given the chance, he would be one of them.” He speaks calmly, that angel, soothingly in an attempt to calm me down. My reaction is panicked, even though we are well after the fact, but why would he bother explaining to me?

Dean picks up on the meaning behind those words and asks, “And what visage are you in now, huh? Holy tax accountant?” 

“This?” Castiel muses as he looks himself over. “This is a vessel.”

“You’re possessing some poor bastard?”

“He’s a devout man. He actually prayed for this.”

And that is enough to convince Dean. Angel or not, demon or saint, possession is his line. Taking someone over, circumventing the thoughts and desires that belong to the body, the total disregard for the free will of the host: it ’s the line Dean can’t cross. His mind will not be changed by anything this being says now. Castiel is well and truly suspect.

“Look, pal, I’m not buying what you’re selling. So who are you, really?”

“I told you.”

“Right. And why would an angel rescue me from Hell?”

“Good things do happen, Dean.”

And though he clings to me, pulls me close, and squeezes me tightly, he says, “Not in my experience.” It breaks my heart. He is always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Confused, the angel looks deeply into dean’s eyes, as if trying to find the answer there. “What’s the matter? You don’t think you deserve to be saved.”

There it is. The crux of the matter. It’s why he believed all of John’s criticism and accepted every burden he was given. It’s why he can’t understand why he was returned from Hell. It’s why he thought Hell was an acceptable solution in the first place. He could never please John, he had earned whatever horrors haunted him of Hell, better it be him that died rather than Sammy.

He doesn’t believe. Least of all in himself.

He can’t see that he deserves so much better. He deserves the love I offer, the trust Bobby has in him, the hero’s pedestal on which Sam has forever placed him. He can’t see himself. If only he could see the man he is through our eyes. And I’m ashamed that I can’t make him.

“Why’d you do it?”

“Because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.”

I am afraid of that answer. It seems so unfair. He’s worked so hard already, given so much of his young life to the protection of others. But it fills me with pride to know that something bigger than us all understands Dean’s worth, even if he refuses that truth himself. I wrap my arms around him, placing my head over his heart, turning my back on Castiel. I know Dean will protect me. The boy in that picture grew to be our protector, our defense against all comers. He was young and happy but already willing to give all he had for us. A man who has the capacity for love that Dean has, surely has room for faith. Until he finds that faith, I’ll have enough for us both.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Comments are nice.


End file.
